100%: the Story of a Patriot eBook

But no, she was always in a tension, and the devil
of it was, she was trying to get Peter into the same
state. She was absolutely determined that Peter
must get wrought up over the wrongs of the working
classes. She took it for granted that he would,
when he was instructed. She would tell him harrowing
stories, and it was his duty to be duly harrowed;
he must be continually acting an emotional part.
She would give him some of her “literature”
to read, and then she would pin him down and make
sure that he had read it. He knew how to read—­Pericles
Priam had seen to that, because he wanted him to attend
to the printing of his circulars and his advertisements
in the country newspapers where he was traveling.
So now Peter was penned in a corner and compelled
to fix his attention upon “The A. B. C. of Socialism,”
or “Capital and Proletariat,” or “The
Path to Power.”

Peter told himself that it was part of his job to
acquire this information. He was going to be
a “Red,” and he must learn their lingo;
but he found it awfully tiresome, full of long technical
words which he had never heard before. Why couldn’t
these fellows at least talk American? He had
known that there were Socialists, and also “Arnychists,”
as he called them, and he thought they were all alike.
But now he learned, not merely about Socialists and
“Arnychists,” but about State Socialists
and Communist Anarchists, and Communist Syndicalists
and Syndicalist Anarchists and Socialist Syndicalists,
and Reformist Socialists and Guild Socialists, to say
nothing about Single Taxers and Liberals and Progressives
and numerous other varieties, whom he had to meet
and classify and listen to respectfully and sympathetically.
Each particular group insisted upon the distinctions
which made it different, and each insisted that it
had the really, truly truth; and Peter became desperately
bored with their everlasting talk—­how much
more simple to lump them all together, as did Guffey
and McGivney, calling them all “Reds!”

Peter had got it clearly fixed in his mind that what
these “Reds” wanted was to divide up the
property of the rich. Everyone he had questioned
about them had said this. But now he learned that
this wasn’t it exactly. What they wanted
was to have the State take over the industries, or
to have the labor unions do it, or to have the working
people in general do it. They pointed to the post
office and the army and the navy, as examples of how
the State could run things. Wasn’t that
all right? demanded Jennie. And Peter said Yes,
that was all right; but hidden back in Peter’s
soul all the time was a whisper that it wouldn’t
make a damn bit of difference. There was a sucker
born every minute, and you might be sure that no matter
how they fixed it up, there would always be some that
would find it easy to live off the rest. This
poor kid, for example, who was ready to throw herself
away for any fool notion, or for anybody that came
along and told her a hard-luck story—­would
there ever be a state of society in which she wouldn’t
be a juicy morsel to be gobbled up by some fellow
with a normal appetite?